Aravind Adiga wins Booker prize with The White Tiger | Books | The Guardian Close This article is 8 years old After an "emotionally draining" and closely fought final judging session, Aravind Adiga, one of the two debut novelists on the Man Booker shortlist, was last night awarded the £50,000 prize for The White Tiger , a bracingly modern novel about the dark side of the new India. Adiga, 33, is a surprise winner: at long odds he batted aside the claims of veteran writers on the shortlist such as Sebastian Barry and Amitav Ghosh. He is only the fourth first time novelist to win the prize, after Keri Hulme in 1985, Arundhati Roy in 1997 and DBC Pierre in 2003 - and he is the second youngest after Ben Okri, who won in 1991 aged 32. Michael Portillo, the chair of the judges, talked of a final panel meeting characterised by "passionate debate". Adiga's book won by a "sufficient", but by no means unanimous, margin.

"It was pretty close," said Portillo, and in the last stages it was down to a battle between The White Tiger and one other book. The White Tiger takes a sharp and unblinking look at the reality of India's economic miracle. Its antihero and narrator, Balram Halwai, is a cocksure, uneducated young man, the son of an impoverished rickshaw driver. By lying, betraying and using his sharp intelligence, Balram makes his ascent into the heady heights of Bangalore's big business. The writing of the novel, said Adiga, had come out of his career as a journalist, and his encounters - as a relatively privileged middle-class man - with members of India's underclass. "Class is a boring topic to write about. Big divides are not what people are interested in. But it's the most pressing concern - because other things spring out of it, like terrorism and instability," he said. "The book has done very well in India - and there is a need for books like this. "Something extraordinary is happening between the rich and the poor.

Once, there was at least a common culture between rich and poor, but that has been eroded, and people have noted that." Asked what he would do with the money, he said: "The first thing is to find a bank I can put it in." Portillo said that Adiga "undertakes an extraordinary task - he gains and holds the attention of the reader for a hero who is a thoroughgoing villain". He also praised the work's attention to "important social issues: the division between rich and poor, and issues on a global scale. And it is extremely readable." The main criterion for the prize, he said, was: "Does this book knock my socks off? And this did." The feeling among the judges, Portillo said, was that "here was a book on the cutting edge, dealing with a different aspect of India, unfamiliar perhaps to many readers. What set it apart was its originality. The feeling was that this was new territory." Portillo likened the novel to Macbeth. "It is about ambition realised through murder," he said, "but with a delicious twist.

Whereas Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are driven mad by their crime, the hero of this book is only driven mad by the fact that he hesitated and might not have committed his crime." The novel takes the form of seven letters addressed by Balram to the Chinese premier on the eve of a state visit, and its tone is almost Dickensian, as the unpleasant reality of contemporary Indian society is revealed via mordant sketches of characters, from millionaires in their air-conditioned tower blocks to the unfortunates who are trapped in poverty and who live literally below them, catering to their every whim. Kevin Rushby, reviewing the book for the Guardian, called it "a witty parable of India's changing society". Adiga was born in Chennai in 1974 and was raised partly in Australia. Having studied at Columbia and Oxford universities, he became a journalist, and has written for Time magazine and many British newspapers. He lives in Mumbai. The other authors on the shortlist were Philip Hensher for The Northern Clemency, Steve Toltz for A Fraction of the Whole, and Linda Grant for The Clothes on Their Backs.

The other judges were Alex Clark, critic and editor of Granta; the novelist Louise Doughty; James Heneage, the founder of Ottakar's bookshops; and Hardeep Singh Kohli, the broadcaster. Extract Now, I no longer watch Hindi films - on principle - but back in the days when I used to, just before the movie got started, either the number 786 would flash against the black screen - the Muslims think this is a magic number that represents their god - or else you would see the picture of a woman in a white sari with gold sovereigns dripping down to her feet, which is the goddess Lakhshmi, of the Hindus. It is an ancient and veneratedcustom of people in my country to start a story by praying to a Higher Power. I guess, Your Excellency, that I too should start off by kissing some god's arse. Which god's arse, though? There are so many choices. See the Muslims have one god. The Christians have three gods. And we Hindus have 36,000,000 gods. Making a grand total of 36,000,004 divine arses for me to choose from.

Now there are some, and I don't just mean Communists like you, but thinking men of all political parties, who think that not many of these gods actually exist. Some believe that none of them exist. There's just us and an ocean of darkness around us. I'm no philosopher or poet, how would I know the truth? It's true that all these gods seem to do awfully little work - much like our politicians - and yet keep winning re-election to their golden thrones in heaven, year after year. Novel About India Wins the Man Booker Prize - The New York Times The New York Times Europe |Novel About India Wins the Man Booker Prize Search Novel About India Wins the Man Booker Prize By VICTORIA YOUNG Continue reading the main story LONDON — Aravind Adiga, 33, won the 40th Man Booker prize on Tuesday night for his debut novel, “The White Tiger,” a vivid exploration of India ’s class struggle told through the story of a village boy who becomes the chauffeur to a rich man. Mr. Adiga, who lives in Mumbai, was born in India and brought up partly in Australia.

He studied at Columbia and Oxford and is a former correspondent for Time magazine in India. He is the second youngest writer to win the award; Ben Okri was 32 when he won for “The Famished Road” in 1991. Michael Portillo, a former cabinet minister and the chairman of this year’s panel of judges, praised Mr. Adiga’s novel, saying that the short list had contained a series of “extraordinarily readable page-turners.” However, Mr. Adiga’s book had prevailed, he said, “because the judges felt that it shocked and entertained in equal measure.” Mr. Adiga said his book was an “attempt to catch the voice of the men you meet as you travel through India — the voice of the colossal underclass.” Photo Aravind Adiga after winning the 2008 Man Booker prize in London. Credit Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters “This voice was not captured,” he added, “and I wanted to do so without sentimentality or portraying them as mirthless humorless weaklings as they are usually.” When he accepted the award, Mr.

Adiga dedicated it to “the people of New Delhi where I lived and where I wrote this book.” When asked what he would do with the money, Mr. Adiga joked, “The first thing I am going to do is to find a bank that I can actually put it in.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story The Man Booker prize, Britain ’s best-known and most generous literary award, is given annually to a novel written by an author from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth nations and is accompanied by a check for £50,000 — about $86,000 — as well as an inevitable increase in sales. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy This year’s list of finalists was one of the least star-studded in recent years. It included two first-time novelists, and several of the favorites were snubbed by judges. Joseph O’Neill’s critically acclaimed “Netherland” was omitted from the short list, as was “The Enchantress of Florence” by Salman Rushdie. As a result, bookmakers were divided over the likely winner, oscillating between Mr.

Adiga and the Irish writer Sebastian Barry, 53, whose book “The Secret Scripture” is the story of an Irish patient in a mental hospital sharing her shocking family history with her psychiatrist. The other books on the shortlist were “Sea of Poppies” by Amitav Ghosh, “The Clothes on Their Backs” by Linda Grant, “The Northern Clemency” by Philip Hensher and “A Fraction of the Whole” by Steve Toltz. A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: A Debut Novel About India Wins the Man Booker Prize.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Man Booker Prize 2008 Winner Announced | The Man Booker Prizes Home / Man Booker Prize 2008 Winner Announced Man Booker Prize 2008 Winner Announced Man Booker Prize 2008 Winner Announced Published on Submitted by Natalie on Tue, 2008-10-14 15:27 First-time novelist, Aravind Adiga, hits the Man Booker jackpot Aravind Adiga is tonight (Tuesday 14 October) named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The White Tiger, published by Atlantic. The Indian writer is one of two first-time novelists on the 2008 Man Booker shortlist of six. The other is Steve Toltz. Only three other debut novelists have achieved this in the past - Keri Hulme for her novel The Bone People, DBC Pierre in 2003 for his novel Vernon God Little and Arundhati Roy in 1997 for The God of Small Things.

Thirty-three year old Aravind Adiga, who has wanted to be a novelist since he was a boy, was born in Madras and now lives in Mumbai. The White Tiger is a 'compelling, angry and darkly humorous' novel about a man's journey from Indian village life to entrepreneurial success. It was described by one reviewer as an ‘unadorned portrait' of India seen ‘from the bottom of the heap'. Aravind Adiga is the fourth Indian born-author to win the prize, joining compatriots Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai who won the prize in 1981, 1997 and 2006 respectively. A fifth winner, V S Naipaul is of Indian ancestry. In addition, The White Tiger is the ninth winning novel to take its inspiration from India or Indian identity. Tonight's win is a first for publisher Atlantic; although they had a book shortlisted for the prize in 2003 with The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut and in 2004 with Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor.

Michael Portillo, Chair of the judges, made the announcement, which was broadcast live on the BBC Ten O' Clock News, at the awards dinner at the Guildhall, London. Peter Clarke, Chief Executive of Man Group plc, presented Aravind Adiga with a cheque for £50,000. Michael Portillo comments, "The judges found the decision difficult because the shortlist contained such strong candidates. In the end, The White Tiger prevailed because the judges felt that it shocked and entertained in equal measure. "The novel undertakes the extraordinarily difficult task of gaining and holding the reader's sympathy for a thoroughgoing villain. The book gains from dealing with pressing social issues and significant global developments with astonishing humour." Over and above his prize of £50,000, Aravind Adiga may expect a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The judging panel for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction comprised: Michael Portillo, former MP and Cabinet Minister; Alex Clark, editor of Granta; Louise Doughty, novelist; James Heneage, founder of Ottakar's bookshops; and Hardeep Singh Kohli, TV and radio broadcaster. The Winner The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Atlantic Books, £12.99 Born in the heartland of India to the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram Halwai, the ‘White Tiger', dreams of escaping his life as a teashop worker turned chauffeur. Yet when his chance finally arrives and his eyes are opened to the revelatory city of New Delhi, Balram becomes caught between his instinct to be a loyal son and servant and his desire to better himself. As he passes through two different Indias on his journey from the darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success, he begins to realise how the Tiger might finally escape his cage, and he is not afraid to spill a little blood along the way. Aravind Adiga was born in Madras on 23 October 1974 and raised partly in Australia.

He studied at Columbia and Oxford Universities and is a former correspondent for Time magazine in India. Adiga's articles have also appeared in publications such as the Financial Times, Independent and Sunday Times. He currently lives in Mumbai. For further information or interview requests please contact: Karen Duffy on 020 7269 1621 or at KarenDuffy@groveatlantic.co.uk The other 2008 shortlisted titles were: Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture Faber and Faber Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies John Murray Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs Virago Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency Fourth Estate Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole Hamish Hamilton There were 112 entries for the Man Booker Prize this year; 103 were submitted by publishers and nine were called in by the judges. The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) won the Man Booker Prize 2007. It has now sold over half a million copies in English language editions worldwide.

The Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in 1969, and Man Group plc was announced as the sponsor of the prize in April 2002, with a five year extension agreed in 2006. For a full history of the prize including previous winners, shortlisted authors and judges visit the website: . It is a major media and information tool which is accessed worldwide with up to the minute information about both the annual Man Booker Prize and the biennial man Booker International Prize. Featuring news, interviews and written pieces as well as a lively forum and full history archive of the prize, the site is used by journalists, bloggers and general members of the public on a daily basis. Every year publishers are allowed to submit two books for the Man Booker Prize. Every former Booker Prize winner and any author who has appeared on the shortlist in the last ten years is also eligible. 2008 is the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize (now the Man Booker Prize) for Fiction. To mark the occasion, a range of events and initiatives have been taking place throughout the year.

The V&A Museum is currently hosting an exhibition - The Booker 40 at the V&A - which tells the visual story of the prize over the years. The display includes every book which has won since 1969 as well as a wide selection of shortlisted titles and one of the original Booker trophies. It examines what made ‘The Booker' one of the most talked about and influential literary prizes in the English speaking world. It opened on 6th September and will run until 17th May 2009. For further information please visit . The British Council is working towards the creation of an online collection of contemporary British literature and is in negotiation with publishers to include former winners of the Booker Prize and Man Booker Prize as e-books, which can be purchased. The Advisory Committee, which advises on any changes to the rules and on the selection of the judges, represents all sides of the book world.

Its members are: Ion Trewin, Chair (Literary Director, Man Booker Prizes); Richard Cable, publisher; Mark Chilton, Company Secretary, Booker Ltd; Peter Clarke, Chief Executive, Man Group plc; Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust; Victoria Glendinning, writer; Basil Comely, BBC TV; Derek Johns, literary agent; Gerry Johnson, Managing Director, Waterstone's; Nigel Newton, publisher; Fiammetta Rocco, literary editor, The Economist (Man Booker International Prize administrator); Eve Smith (Company Secretary, the Booker Prize Foundation); Robert Topping; Topping & Company Booksellers and Erica Wagner, literary editor, The Times. The Booker Prize Foundation is a registered charity (no 1090049) which, since 2002, has been responsible for the award of the prize.

The trustees of the Booker Prize Foundation are former Chairman of Booker plc, Jonathan Taylor CBE (Chair); Lord Baker of Dorking CH; playwright and President of the Royal Literary Fund, Ronald Harwood CBE; former Chair of the British Council, Baroness Kennedy QC; writer, Baroness Neuberger DBE; MEP Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne; and former Finance Director of Rentokil plc, Christopher Pearce. Martyn Goff CBE, former Man Booker Prize administrator, has recently been appointed President of the Foundation. Man Group plc has sponsored the Man Booker Prize since 2002 and is this year celebrating its own notable anniversary - its 225th. Man is a world-leading alternative investment management business. With a broad range of funds for institutional and private investors globally, it is known for its performance, innovative product design and investor service. Man manages over USD70 billion and employs 1,800 people in 13 countries worldwide. The original business was founded in 1783. Today, Man Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and ranked in the top 50 companies of the FTSE 100 index, with a market capitalisation of USD10 billion*.

Man supports many awards, charities and initiatives around the world, including sponsorship of the Man Booker literary prizes and the Man Group International Climate Change Award. In the year to March 2008 the Man Group plc Charitable Trust gave 12% of its $12m charitable budget to charities concerned with improving literacy. A major contribution in the literacy category was a £1m pledge to the ‘Every Child a Reader' reading recovery programme spread over three years from 2006. Other sizeable donations were made to Dyslexia Action and Kids Company Reading Recovery Teachers, whilst smaller contributions were made to Write to Life, Bookaid International, Volunteer Reading Help, The Shannon Trust, RNIB Talking Books and St. Petrock's (Exeter). Further information can be found at . * Estimated at 29 September 2008 Booker is the UK's leading food wholesaler with over 170 branches nationwide. It serves over 350,000 independent businesses. The Booker Prize Archive was given on loan in 2003 to Oxford Brookes University where it now resides.

Each year The Booker Prize Foundationpays forthe production ofthe Man Booker Prize for Fiction shortlisted titles in Braille, Giant Print and Audio formats by the Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB). The Foundation is also working with the Sound Archive of the British Library onits 'National Life Stories - Authors' Lives' project by funding archive interviews withshortlisted authors. For further information and press enquiries please contact Jill Cotton or Lucy Chavasse at Colman Getty Tel: 020 7631 2666 Book Review | 'The White Tiger,' by Aravind Adiga - The New York Times The New York Times Sunday Book Review |The Secret of His Success Search The Secret of His Success By AKASH KAPUR Continue reading the main story Balram Halwai, the narrator of Aravind Adiga’s first novel, “The White Tiger,” is a modern Indian hero. In a country inebriated by its newfound economic prowess, he is a successful entrepreneur, a self-made man who has risen on the back of India’s much-vaunted technology industry.

In a nation proudly shedding a history of poverty and underdevelopment, he represents, as he himself says, “tomorrow.” Balram’s triumphal narrative, framed somewhat inexplicably as a letter to the visiting Chinese premier, unfurls over seven days and nights in Bangalore.It’s a rather more complicated story than Balram initially lets on. Before moving to Bangalore, he was a driver for the weak-willed son of a feudal landlord. One rainy day in Delhi, he crushed the skull of his employer and stole a bag containing a large amount of money, capital that financed his Bangalore taxi business. That business — ferrying technology workers to and from their jobs — depends, in turn, on keeping the police happy with the occasional bribe. As a parable of the new India, then, Balram’s tale has a distinctly macabre twist. He is not (or not only) an entrepreneur but a roguish criminal with a remarkable capacity for self-justification. Likewise, the background against which he operates is not just a resurgent economy and nation but a landscape of corruption, inequality and poverty.

In some of the book’s more convincing passages, Balram describes his family’s life in “the Darkness,” a region deep in the heartland marked by medieval hardship, where brutal landlords hold sway, children are pulled out of school into indentured servitude and elections are routinely bought and sold. This grim world is far removed from the glossy images of Bollywood stars and technology entrepreneurs that have been displacing earlier (and equally clichéd) Indian stereotypes featuring yoga and spirituality. It is not a world that rich urban Indians like to see. Indeed, when Adiga’s book recently won the Man Booker Prize , some in India lambasted it as a Western conspiracy to deny the country’s economic progress. Yet Adiga isn’t impressed by such nationalistic fervor. In bare, unsentimental prose, he strips away the sheen of a self-congratulatory nation and reveals instead a country where the social compact is being stretched to the breaking point. There is much talk in this novel of revolution and insurrection: Balram even justifies his employer’s murder as an act of class warfare. “The White Tiger” is a penetrating piece of social commentary, attuned to the inequalities that persist despite India’s new prosperity.

It correctly identifies — and deflates — middle-class India’s collective euphoria. But Adiga, a former correspondent for Time magazine who lives in Mumbai, is less successful as a novelist. His detailed descriptions of various vile aspects of Indian life are relentless — and ultimately a little monotonous. Every moment, it seems, is bleak, pervaded by “the Darkness.” Every scene, every phrase, is a blunt instrument, wielded to remind Adiga’s readers of his country’s cruelty. The characters can also seem superficial. Balram’s landlord boss and his wife are caricatures of the insensitive upper classes, cruel to and remote from their employees. Although Balram himself is somewhat more interesting, his credulousness and naïveté often ring false. When he goes to buy alcohol for his employer, he finds himself “dazzled by the sight of so much English liquor.” When he visits a shopping mall, he is “conscious of a perfume in the air, of golden light, of cool, air-conditioned air, of people in T-shirts and jeans. . . . I saw an elevator going up and down that seemed made of pure golden glass.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story The problem with such scenes isn’t simply that they’re overdone.

In their surfeit of emblematic detail, they reduce the characters to symbols. There is an absence of human complexity in “The White Tiger,” not just in its characters but, more problematically, in its depiction of a nation that is in reality caught somewhere between Adiga’s vision and the shinier version he so clearly — and fittingly — derides. Lacking this more balanced perspective, the novel feels simplistic: an effective polemic, perhaps, but an incomplete portrait of a nation and a people grappling with the ambiguities of modernity. THE WHITE TIGER AbeBooks: Man Booker Prize 2008 - Shortlist Home > Man Booker Prize 2008 - Winner Man Booker Prize 2008 - Winner The White Tiger - Winner! Aravind Adiga A 34-year-old debut novelist from Chennai, India, Adiga began his career as a financial journalist. Described by Adiga as an “attack on a rotten political system,” The White Tiger explores modern India through the eyes of Balram Halwai, a former village tea boy. Seizing his chance to escape rural poverty, the reader sees the youthful Balram transform into an enterprising but corrupt chauffeur.

“I wanted something that would provoke and annoy people. I was trying to capture this gulf in the country,” said Adiga. “A poor man in India is never going to transform things. The only transformation possible is crime for someone like Balram. Often life is so tough you just have to be brutal.” Juxtaposing plasma TVs with hand-pulled rickshaws, The White Tiger emphasizes the widening class gap in an economically booming India. Dubbed by The Economist as “a character who is both witty and psychopathic,” Balram is hailed as “a hero almost as memorable as Pip,” and Adiga as the “Charles Dickens of the call-centre generation.” A Fraction of the Whole - Runner-up Steve Toltz Toltz is an Australian debut novelist, whose professional exploits have included telemarketing, teaching English and a stint as a private investigator Described by The Herald as ‘an epic work of imagination,’ Toltz’s madcap tale of a bizarre family of Australian outcasts transpired from two short stories. “I thought that story looks like the beginning of something and that one looks like the end of something. Now I just have to string them together. Except the middle took a bit longer than I’d anticipated,” he said.

After five years of non-stop revisions and a series of temporary jobs from film extra to security guard, Toltz’s novel has been compared to John Kennedy Toole, Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and even Voltaire. Fusing together the Australian preoccupations with sport and crime, A Fraction of the Whole happily explores the farcical Dean family. Terry is a former bank robber turned serial killer who seeks to eradicate cheating athletes, while his brother Martin is a Homer Simpson-esque “philosopher” who instructs his five-year-old son in Nietzsche while concocting schemes for world government. Sea of Poppies - Runner-up Amitav Ghosh One of India’s foremost novelists, Ghosh is a former journalist raised and educated across India, Iran, Sri Lanka, Egypt, the UK and America. The first in the highly anticipated Ibis Trilogy, Sea of Poppies examines the opium trade and 19th century British colonialism. Set on the eve of the opium wars, Ghosh throws together an idiosyncratic cast of empirical escapees and colonial eccentrics on a former slave trading vessel crossing the Indian Ocean. The novel has been compared to Walter Scott’s Waverley.

“I wanted to write a book about Indian families heading into the Indian dispersal in the 19th century,” said Ghosh in an interview with The Guardian. Discussing Britain’s forced export of Indian labor, Ghosh says “the 1830s was when it began, which was also the period of the opium wars. It's impossible to know for sure but the introduction of really large scale opium cultivation created enormous social disruption.” Sea of Poppies follows a string of highly successful works of fiction from the Calcutta-native social anthropologist, including the Arthur C Clark Award-winning, Calcutta Chromosome, and the Frankfurt International E-book Fiction Prize- winner, The Glass Palace. Ghosh’s Circle of Reason and Shadow Lines also earned top literary awards in France and India. The Secret Scripture - Runner-up Sebastian Barry A 53-year-old prize-winning playwright, novelist and poet, Barry is the son of Irish actress Joan O’Hara. While his fourth novel may bear some familiar Irish literary hallmarks, the reader quickly realizes there is much more to The Secret Scripture than the conventional gloom of an elderly woman haunted by her youth.

The Secret Scripture depicts the journals of Roseanne, a 100-year-old woman who has spent the better part of her life in a mental hospital. Sharing the narrative with her closest companion, Doctor Grene, Barry illustrates two individuals striving to understand a slowly emerging but difficult past. A character largely based on one of Barry’s great aunts, Barry addresses the strict codes of Catholic Ireland and the harsh social repercussions in his portrayal of Roseanne. “I once heard my grandfather say that she was no good,” says Barry [of his great aunt]. “That's what survives and the rumors of her beauty. She was nameless, fateless, unknown. I felt I was almost duty-bound as a novelist to reclaim her and, indeed, remake her.” The Secret Scripture follows three other works of fiction, including A Long Long Way which was long-listed for the Booker in 2005 and selected for Dublin’s 2007 One City Book Event. The Clothes on Their Backs - Runner-up Linda Grant Grant is 57-year-old multi-award-winning journalist and author from Liverpool known for her witty commentary in The Guardian and a keen interest in Israel.

Loosely based on the life of the infamous London landlord Peter Rachman, Grant’s novel about a young woman’s attempts to escape her Hungarian upbringing and unearth her suppressed family history has been compared to Anita Brookner’s work. Described as a “tragicomedy,” the book follows Vivien, the daughter of two Hungarian refugees determined to quietly exist in a rented Marylebone flat after fleeing pre-war Hungary. After an absurdly brief marriage, Vivien develops a close relationship with her uncle Sandor, a notorious landlord, reviled by his tenants. The Clothes on Their Backs is Grant’s third novel, following Cast Iron Shore which won the David Higham First Novel Award and Still Here which was shortlisted for the Booker in 2002. Her account of her mother’s descent into dementia Remind Me Who I Am, Again won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year Award and the Age Concern Book of the Year Award. She has also earned considerable acclaim for her non-fiction, including People on the Street: a Writer’s View of Israel which won the Lettre Ulysses Award in 2006.

The Northern Clemency - Runner-up Philip Hensher A 44-year-old journalist, critic, professor and former Booker Prize judge, Hensher lists Pac Man as his major vice. Hensher recalls an evening spent “jumping up and down in his seat to a Brahms slow movement” after earning a place on the Booker shortlist. The Northern Clemency firmly grounds the reader in dreary mid-1970s Northern England. Vividly recalling a decade of vol-au-vents, brown smoked glass and Margaret Thatcher’s domination, Hensher’s semi-autobiographical saga of neighboring families has provoked a polarized media response. The Guardian declared it “a test of how many miniature quiches one can eat,” but other reviewers have hailed Hensher for his insight into an era which is often overlooked. Commended in The Independent as a “precise and playful” come-back of the “no-stone-unturned conspectus of recent English life,” the reader is smoothly drawn into the author’s world where nation-forming political and social upheaval takes a backseat to a suspected affair. Aravind Adiga wins Booker prize: a worthy winner?

| Books | The Guardian Aravind Adiga wins Booker prize: a worthy winner? Tuesday 14 October 2008 18.32 EDT First published on Tuesday 14 October 2008 18.32 EDT Close So now we know. Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger has won this year's Booker prize. The (Man) Booker has been around long enough for at least 10 kinds of winner to have become recognisable types. Let's review them, and work where the 2008 laureate belongs. 1. "A Star is Born" – eg Yann Martel or DBC Pierre. These shooting stars come from nowhere, and are overnight mega-bright. 2. The literary "Long Service Good Conduct" medal - eg Iris Murdoch and Kingsley Amis. "OK, The Old Devils and The Sea, The Sea wasn't their best work - but no one ever lost their job for ordering IBM and it's a safe choice". 3. "Let's for God's sake have a book this year that people will really enjoy reading" - eg Byatt's Possession, Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur.

This, sad to say, is the slimmest category in the Booker archive. It won't be swollen this year. 4. "This is the Britain's premier fiction prize, but let's show how 'post-British' we are" - the last four prizes (including that for 2008) have been won by two Indians (one resident in Mumbai, one in New York) and two citizens of Eire (one resident in Dublin, the other in New York). Anyone for home cooking? Or is it hot dogs and vindaloo washed down with a pint of Guinness? 5. "Let's give him/her a prize before the poor old sod dies" - eg Paul Scott (who did, unfortunately, snuff it before he could enjoy his victory) and William Golding (who won aged 70). 6. "Let's give it to a fucking good fucking novel that isn't afraid to use the word fuck" - eg James Kelman. "And fuck Anita Brookner's wimpery. We're a tough-guy panel". 7.

"Let's be masochistic and give it to a novelist who, we know, despises prizes and won't even turn up to collect it" - eg JM Coetzee. 8. "Let's give it to the novelist who should have won it for his last novel - even though this one ain't so hot" - eg Ian McEwan and Amsterdam. 9. "We're out of our minds - lock us up before we do more damage to Literature" - eg "G" and (forgive me New Zealand) The Bone People. 10. "Jesus Christ, we're in luck. This is a masterpiece!" - Midnight's Children (triple Booker winner), In a Free State. One could go on. The wonder is that, whatever the spin, the Man Booker invariably comes up with a novel which makes us think about what good fiction is. In which of the above categories does The White Tiger belong? Clearly there's an element of shooting star. For most of us Aravind Adiga was an unknown quantity before 2008. Clearly, too, his novel is what I've called "post-British".

And it confirms a widening ripple in the Booker's sense of what the novel, as a genre, should do. Thirty years ago, I believe, Philip Hensher's introvertedly English Sheffield saga, The Northern Clemency, would have won hands down. Twenty years ago, I think some beloved old soldier (Beryl Bainbridge, for example, or John Le Carré) would have been in with a strong chance. And if, as Louise Doughty has told us, "readability" should be the sole criterion, why not Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader? That, alas, would be a wholly new category of uncommonly readable winner. Aravind Adiga, one of two debut novelists on the Man Booker shortlist, awarded £50,000 prize for The White Tiger Published: 14 Oct 2008 Aravind Adiga Wins Literature's Man Booker Prize - washingtonpost.com Aravind Adiga Wins Literature's Man Booker Prize Tuesday, October 14, 2008; 5:37 PM LONDON -- Aravind Adiga has won the prestigious Man Booker prize for his first novel.

Adiga's novel "The White Tiger" features a protagonist who will use any means necessary to fulfill his dream of escaping impoverished village life for success in the big city. The judges also praised the book's humor. The 34-year-old Adiga is the youngest of the finalists for the prize. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. LONDON (AP) _ Irish writer Sebastian Barry was the bookies' favorite Tuesday in a wide-open field of finalists for the prestigious Man Booker prize for fiction. Barry's "The Secret Scripture," a story of misery, memories and secrets in 1930s Ireland, was 5/2 front-runner among six contenders for the award, according to bookmakers William Hill. Rival bookies Ladbrokes had Barry as 2/1 front-runner. Both firms had Indian writer Amitav Ghosh as second-favorite for "Sea of Poppies." The winner will be announced late Tuesday.

The 50,000 pound (US$88,000) prize is among the world's highest-profile literary awards, open to novels in English by writers from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth of former British colonies. Winning brings a big boost in profile, and usually in sales. Playwright and novelist Barry was previously nominated in 2005 for "A Long Long Way." Victory would make him the third Irish winner in four years. The 2005 prize went to John Banville for the "The Sea," and last year's winner was Ireland's Anne Enright for "The Gathering." The 2006 winner was India's Kiran Desai for "The Inheritance of Loss." This year's Booker shortlist lacks the star power and household names of some previous contests.

Few of the six shortlisted authors are household names, and two are first-time authors: Indian novelist Aravind Adiga, nominated for "The White Tiger" _ the story of a man's dreams of escaping poor village life for success in the big city _ and Australia's Steve Toltz, shortlisted for sprawling father-son saga "A Fraction of the Whole." Two English authors are also in the running _ Linda Grant for "The Clothes on Their Backs" and Philip Hensher for "The Northern Clemency." Among those snubbed by the judging panel was Salman Rushdie, who was on the prize's 13-book long-list for the "Enchantress of Florence." In July, Rushdie was named the greatest-ever winner of the literary prize for "Midnight's Children," which took the Booker in 1981. Graham Sharpe, Booker expert at bookies William Hill, said the judges' decision to omit another highly praised book, Joseph O'Neill's post-9/11 New York saga "Netherland," from the shortlist was inexplicable. "It's certainly not a vintage year either for the quality of the books or the gambling on the outcome," Sharpe said.

"You haven't got the big names, the controversy _ anything to spark a flame of interest in the shortlist." William Hill put 7/2 odds on Ghosh and Grant, followed by Toltz at 9/2. Adiga and Hensher were both 5/1 outsiders. The award was founded in 1969 and was long known as the Booker Prize. It was renamed when the financial services conglomerate Man Group PLC began sponsoring it five years ago. ___ Aravind Adiga wins literature's Man Booker prize - USATODAY.com Aravind Adiga wins literature's Man Booker prize Updated Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger scored the Man Booker prize. LONDON (AP)  Aravind Adiga has won the prestigious Man Booker prize for his first novel. Adiga's novel The White Tiger features a protagonist who will use any means necessary to fulfill his dream of escaping impoverished village life for success in the big city. The judges also praised the book's humor. The 34-year-old Adiga is the youngest of the finalists for the prize.

Irish writer Sebastian Barry was the bookies' favorite Tuesday in a wide-open field of finalists for the prestigious Man Booker prize for fiction. Barry's The Secret Scripture, a story of misery, memories and secrets in 1930s Ireland, was 5/2 front-runner among six contenders for the award, according to bookmakers William Hill. Rival bookies Ladbrokes had Barry as 2/1 front-runner. Both firms had Indian writer Amitav Ghosh as second-favorite for Sea of Poppies. The winner will be announced late Tuesday. The 50,000 pound (US$88,000) prize is among the world's highest-profile literary awards, open to novels in English by writers from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth of former British colonies. Winning brings a big boost in profile, and usually in sales. Playwright and novelist Barry was previously nominated in 2005 for A Long Long Way. Victory would make him the third Irish winner in four years. The 2005 prize went to John Banville for the The Sea, and last year's winner was Ireland's Anne Enright for The Gathering.

The 2006 winner was India's Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss. This year's Booker shortlist lacks the star power and household names of some previous contests. Few of the six shortlisted authors are household names, and two are first-time authors: Indian novelist Aravind Adiga, nominated for The White Tiger— the story of a man's dreams of escaping poor village life for success in the big city — and Australia's Steve Toltz, shortlisted for sprawling father-son saga A Fraction of the Whole. Two English authors are also in the running — Linda Grant for The Clothes on Their Backs and Philip Hensher for The Northern Clemency. Among those snubbed by the judging panel was Salman Rushdie, who was on the prize's 13-book long-list for the Enchantress of Florence. In July, Rushdie was named the greatest-ever winner of the literary prize for Midnight's Children, which took the Booker in 1981. Graham Sharpe, Booker expert at bookies William Hill, said the judges' decision to omit another highly praised book, Joseph O'Neill's post-9/11 New York saga Netherland, from the shortlist was inexplicable.

"It's certainly not a vintage year either for the quality of the books or the gambling on the outcome," Sharpe said. "You haven't got the big names, the controversy — anything to spark a flame of interest in the shortlist." William Hill put 7/2 odds on Ghosh and Grant, followed by Toltz at 9/2. Adiga and Hensher were both 5/1 outsiders. The award was founded in 1969 and was long known as the Booker Prize. It was renamed when the financial services conglomerate Man Group PLC began sponsoring it five years ago. On the Net: Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Posted E-mail | Print | To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones . For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com . Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more .

Question: Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker prize for 2008 - what was the title of the book?
Answer: The WHITE TIGER